ONE WOMAN'S CHICAGO

A Hyde Park couple is throwing a party. The bar is set out on a drafting table beneath a painting of a bombing, as before a shrine.

The bomb has just fallen, on an archaeological site, somewhere in the Middle East, right in the middle of a dig season. The bomb-blast flowers. The blow-back rocks a truck on its wheels, the explosion radiating death, injury, debris. Ruin upon ruin: the trauma of war visits an ancient city, perhaps a sacred temple or a domicile, destroying the peaceful pursuits of the present, along with the integrity of the past itself. The projectile whistles, leaving a trail.

The painting, the party: Both are vestiges of an important something now gone, reminders of a peace and wholeness lost. A loved one, once present and all-enlivening, is remembered in an off-hand remark or two. A clink of glass, an off-stage laugh; we party on.

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2 Comments

harleyApr 13, 2014 @
14:13:40

That is an odd picture depicting some type of an archaeological site……… Wonder what the significance of it represents to the owner.

CeliaApr 13, 2014 @
18:09:54

The people hosting the party used to work on archaeological digs that the University’s Oriental Institute sponsored. Among the countries where they dug was Iraq. Many Middle Eastern/Mesopotamian digs (in Iran, for instance) have had to be abandoned over the years because of war or deteriorating relationships between countries. In addition, many ancient artifacts and sites in Iraq have been destroyed forever because of our bombing. The painting represents the resulting sorrow.

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